Why Springwatch is the ultimate reality TV show for our times

“Hours and hours of badgers doing bugger all.” That was the stark verdict of one member of a focus group we spoke to before launching Springwatch in 2005. As the first series producer, I feared he might be right.

So we were both amazed and gratified by the response: 3 million people tuned in – more than were watching Big Brother. Who would have thought that knowing whether a brood of baby blue tits would survive the night would grip the nation? Springwatch, it turned out, was genuine “reality TV”.

The series also captured the attention of the media, which at the time could be sniffy about homegrown wildlife. In the Guardian, Blake Morrison wrote a feature headlined “Wild at heart”, noting, with some surprise, that “Britain is quietly falling in love with nature again”.

We have seen a huge increase in the number of young people on our digital platforms

Mark Flowers, producer

A decade and a half later, that relationship is still going strong, and on Tuesday, Springwatch returns in its usual primetime BBC Two slot. Arguably, it has never been so relevant: as presenter Chris Packham says, “While we are all confined to our homes, for wildlife this is the busiest time of year.”

But the lockdown has brought huge technological and logistical problems for the production team. How on earth do you reinvent a three-week-long series, normally staffed by more than 100 people at a single, central location, so that it meets the new social distancing rules?

“It’s Springwatch, Stephen, but not as we know it,” is how Chris sums it up.

The BBC Studios Natural History Unit is inventive and resourceful, and soon came up with a plan. Specialist nest finders, led by wildlife expert Nigel Bean, have set up remote cameras on nests at various locations; footage is then fed to the story developers – keen young naturalists, each working independently – who monitor any interesting behaviour.

Selected material can then be viewed and discussed by the presenters – Packham, Iolo Williams and Gillian Burke – who will be confined during the live broadcasts to the areas around their own homes: in the New Forest, Wales and Cornwall, respectively. This is only possible, series producer Mark Flowers tells me, thanks to rapid advances in digital technology.

Two barn owl chicks in their nest. Photograph: FLPA/Rex/Shutterstock

Springwatch will, therefore, look and feel very different from the polished operation we have come to expect. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. A highlight for nature-lovers during lockdown has been The Self-Isolating Bird Club – a series of daily broadcasts on social media, fronted by Chris and his stepdaughter Megan McCubbin, with presenter Lindsey Chapman.

This really caught the nation’s attention: during an eight-week run, it has gained almost 8 million individual views and 132,000 comments, from tens of thousands of avid followers. At this time of confinement, there is an eager audience out there, keen to learn more about the natural world. .

Flowers hopes that Springwatch will attract new fans who have become more interested in the world around them since the lockdown. “We have seen a huge increase in the number of young people engaging on our digital platforms, which we are delighted about – we can’t wait to see what will happen in the three weeks to come,” he says.

Back in 2005, Springwatch marked a turning point in the way we think about the natural world. Until then, most wildlife programmes were filmed in exotic foreign locations and featured lions, tigers and sharks – not blue tits and badgers. Yet it turned out that the life-and-death struggles faced by the bird families were just as gripping – perhaps even more so – as watching big game on the African savannah.

The programme also changed the broadcasters’ relationship with their audience by pioneering user-generated content in the form of home videos, and using online message boards for viewers to communicate with the production team.

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That special relationship with the viewers is still the key to the programme’s success. Springwatch is already up and running online, with 24-hour live streaming from remote wildlife cameras on up to four different channels; while every weekday at 9am Hannah Stitfall is showing videos and stills sent in by viewers. As Chris says, “We would love to hear from anyone with a story to tell about what they’re seeing during lockdown: from their windows, in their gardens or while taking daily exercise.”

A few years ago, some of my former colleagues wondered if Springwatch had, begun to fade in the nation’s affections. But like the BBC itself, this crisis has brought out the best in a programme that has become a genuine national treasure.

At this time of unprecedented crisis, more and more people – especially the four out of five Britons who live in towns and cities – are discovering a connection with the natural world. For them, and for those of us for whom nature is central to our lives, three weeks of live wildlife is just what we need. I, for one, can’t wait.

Stephen Moss is an author and naturalist based in Somerset, and course leader of Bath Spa University’s MA in travel and nature writing.